I am very excited today as I have luckily been given a “golden ticket” to  Google Wave to try it out. If you are still one of the many people out there scratching your head and saying “what the hell is Google Wave?” then read on for the google gumph…

About Google Wave

Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation
and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

Share - collaborate

What is a wave?

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

When to use Google Wave

There are tons of ways to use Google Wave–here are just a few examples to get you thinking

Organising Events – Keep a single copy of ideas, suggested itinerary, menu and RSVPs, rather than using many different tools. Use gadgets to add weather, maps and more to the event.

Group Projects – Collaboratively work in real time to draft content, discuss and solicit feedback all in one place rather than sending email attachments and creating multiple copies that get out of sync.

Photo Sharing - Drag and drop photos from your desktop into a wave. Share with others. Use the slideshow viewer. Everyone on the wave can add their photos, too. It is easy to make a group photo album in Google Wave.

Meeting notes – Prepare a meeting agenda together, share the burden of taking notes and record decisions so you all leave on the same page. Team members can follow the minutes in real time, or review the history using Playback.

Brainstorming - Bring lots of people into a wave to brainstorm – live concurrent editing makes the quantity of ideas grow quickly! It is easy to add rich content like videos, images, URLs or even links to other waves. Discuss and then work together to distill down to the good ideas.

Interactive Games – Add a gadget to a wave to play live interactive games with your friends (we’re hooked on Sudoku!). See everyone’s moves as they make them in a fast-paced game or take a break and come back later.

Check out the video for more

Google Wave video

So who will be using this? Will it change your business collaboration model? What do you think it could be used for in the future? Write your comments below!